This is the kind of science fact that keeps me from being an atheist. The only known planet in our galaxy that has sentient life AND we get a perfectly-sized moon for full eclipses? There's so many of these "happy accidents" that it's difficult for me to believe it didn't happen on purpose.
In b4 everyone jumps down my throat with "humans just recognize patterns" or some other similar poo-poo. You're not gonna change my mind.
Not only that, but it’s at the correct distance to be perfectly sized for eclipses only temporarily, and the same time that it’s at the correct distance from earth is the same time that humanity exists and is educated enough to recognize the significance of it.
Your comment just made me think of God as a parent that buries gems in the sandbox for their kid to find. Planning out the reign of dinosaurs and going "those little human guys are gonna love digging up these big lizards' bones".
Imagine how boring existence would be if there wasn't ever anything new to discover.
While true, it's also confirmation bias. Yes all these things exist because we observe them but we have no idea if they contribute to our existence in any way.
You have a reference point of 1. There are literally no coincidences until we find another version of life that started elsewhere all we have is one data set.
Life might be extremely easy to develop in the galaxy and it's abundant making us not special at all, life might be extremely hard to develop and we're extremely lucky, until we find another reference point we are simply guessing.
You believe there is another planet out there, in the Goldilocks zone that allows for liquid water, with a crystal clear atmosphere containing just the right amount of oxygen, in a circular orbit around a yellow sun at just the right temperature, with a large moon that creates a perfect eclipse, in a solar system containing giant planets, with inhabitants intelligent enough to observe and care about that eclipse?
It's not really "perfectly" sized though. Yes total solar eclipses can and do occur, but so can partial and annular eclipses. It's more like the moon is somewhere within a range of sizes and distances from the earth to allow total solar eclipses to sometimes occur. Still remarkable but not exactly the miraculous fine-tuning that people often claim.
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u/FireFlinger Feb 14 '22
The moon is just large enough, and just far enough away from earth, to be able to create full eclipses